Marks
by Firefly99
Summary: [OGC][Gen] Cid took one look at Cloud, at the way he was swaying slightly, and, most importantly, the fact that he had an equally stupefied Barret standing behind him. “You’re drunk,” he said.


"Hey," Cloud said, grinning, "Cid, don't you owe me a favour?"

Cid took one look at Cloud, at his wavy stare, at his stupid expression, at the way he was swaying slightly, and, most importantly, the fact that he had an equally-stupefied Barret standing behind him, and rolled his eyes.

"You're drunk," he said.

"I'm not drunk," Cloud chuckled. _Did Cloud just chuckle? Yep. Drunk._ "I didn't have that many, really."

"How many?"

"Well, I lost count. But I've been worse, and I've woken up as clear as a…a…"

"…bell?" Cid offered. Cloud gave a whoop of elation and pointed vaguely in Cid's direction.

"That's the one! Bell! You're marvellous, Cid! Goddamn marvellous!"

He was approaching, grinning in that wide sort of way he only did when he was hammered. Barret sat down, chuckling all the while, spreading his legs in a way that, if Tifa ever did it, would have made Cid happy for hours, and leaned forward, gunarm in the ground.

"Back away from me," Cid said, trying to meet Cloud dead in the eye. Cloud was wobbling a little unsteadily, which didn't make it very easy. "I don't feel like doin' _those_ kind of favours for ya. You're a great guy and all, but I'm just not interested in guys in general."

Normally thoughts flashed through Cloud's brain like a plasma ball on a heavy boil, but in his drunken stupor it took a long while for what Cid had said to sink in.

"No, I don't want that. Yuck. You're disgusting, Cid. Bloody disgusting."

"Well, what else would it be?" Cid smirked, wringing his hands. Drunk people were easy to handle. Unpredictable and slow. A bit like zombies, really. But they were ruled by their basest desires and wants and needs, and not hampered by any real higher purpose. Cid vaguely remembered something he'd heard about ids and egos and superegos. Although, if he thought about it, Cloud was probably more complex than that. He probably had an id, an ego, a superego, a voice in his head, Jenova, and Zack. His internal monologues must be a total trip.

He briefly imagined all the selves in Cloud's head sitting at a long table like the one in the Highwind's ops room. Id snaffled biscuits from the dish on the table, Ego sat at the head of the table staring at the proceedings sullenly, Superego was the one with the sword and the freshly-polished armour and the smoothed-down hair and was standing on the table making a nuisance of himself. Zack was sniggering into his hand, kicked-back on the chair, like the arrogant asshole Cloud had described him as being. As for Jenova, she was trying desperately to tentacle Superego off the table before he did anything virtuous. The voice in his head? That was probably the intercom on the wall.

He snapped himself out of the mental image. It was far too weird. It was proof he'd been living alongside Cloud for far too long. His brainwaves were starting to infect his own. Sooner or later he'd be seeing things.

"I'll tell you what I want you to do," Cloud smiled, and pointed to his arm.

"…handjob?"

"No, you…" Cloud sighed, shaking his head furiously. "I need you to draw me a picture."

"A picture?"

"That's right," Cloud nodded. "You're good at drawing, right?"

"Damn right," responded Cid. He would have gone into art if it hadn't had been so full of namby-pamby presumptuous assholes who were only fit to turn oxygen and glucose into carbon dioxide and water and yet thought they were _it_. He hoped they all died of an infectious disease carried by an improperly-formaldehyded cow.

"So? Draw me a picture, then."

"What of?"

Cloud pointed to his arm again. "A sword. Do me a sword."

"What sort of sword?"

"What sort of sword do you think?" he laughed, sliding the sword off his back, planting it in the ground. Briefly, Cid wondered about what its flowers would look like. Probably bright yellow and fluffy. Then it would drop seed cases that exploded on contact with the ground.

Dammit, this was a three-AM chain of thought if ever he'd had one. And it was only eleven. He'd always liked to say he came up with the best ideas at the small hours of the morning – that was because his sleepy mind was unconstrained by bounds of logic. Thing is, what seemed like a good idea at three AM generally looked like utter crack when he was fully awake. He still had a piece of blueprint paper somewhere where he'd drawn an entire, fully-working robot fish which could be used as an alternative to real goldfish, which were shiny and orange but had a lifespan of about a day and were as boring as hell. His robot fish lit up at the sides with little neon chambers, so it could double as a nightlight, and you could scoop it out of the tank and press a dorsal fin and its mouth would open and work as a cigarette lighter. Of course, when fully awake he realised how utterly useless it would be, but he still wanted to build one, if only for the interesting challenge of keeping a working cigarette lighter submerged for any length of time. Reeve'd probably get on well with it. Perhaps they could collaborate.

"So you want me to draw you one of them swords?"

"The Shinra X-edgeways-23/28-desig.ψ Buster," Cloud laughed. "A modern masterpiece. Knights in shining armour all over again, but with a hundred times the efficiency. The real boon of the sword is its weight and size, which allows it to have ridiculous crushing power. You don't want to be under the blunt end when it comes down on your head. As for the sharp end – woo, baptism of gore, red everywhere. It's a masterpiece of a sword."

"Right."

"Of course, the SOLDIERs these days carry Shinra Z90-desig.δ Heavenclouds, but they suck. They might have a finer cutting edge and be easier to handle, but in terms of durability the Buster is the best, hands down. Would you run screaming from a guy with a Heavencloud? White metal, stupid shape, completely pointless chains coming off the side for aesthetic purposes which can whap your knuckles pretty hard if you swing it around wrong, and it's only a hundred and twenty-five centimetres long in blade. Only one hundred and twenty-five centimetres, Cid! They call it an upgrade, but it's a downgrade. And the white, tarnish-proof cover?"

He paused, obviously wanting input from Cid.

"Yeah?" he grunted, eventually.

"_It doesn't work,_" Cloud said, in a conspiratorial stage whisper. "The weirdest thing about the Heavenclouds is that –"

" –they've gotten the same name you have?"

"How the hell did you know that my full name is Hea – no, that's not it, actually."

Cid filed down Cloud's little slip for future blackmail. He'd been joking. He hadn't expected Mr. _Heavencloud_ Strife to admit that one at all. He'd been aware that Cloud wasn't his full first name, but for it to be something that ridiculous both bewildered him and made him feel warm, warm pangs of sadistic glee. _Heavencloud_. And he'd been cursing every god he knew about being dubbed Cidney. Suddenly, things were in perspective. Cidney actually sounded pretty cool, especially compared to that damn fluffy fairy name Cloud's parents had cursed him with.

"Then, what is it, Heavencloud?"

"Call me that again and I'll rip you another hole to smoke with," Cloud scowled, and then continued on his monologue about swords. Did he honestly think Cid cared? "Anyway, the best thing about the Heavenclouds is that the imitation models are actually better than the originals. You see, the weapons pirates noted down all the flaws. The fake Heavenclouds are much better – harder, rooted in the hilt–"

_Why,_ Cid thought, _do all these conversations end up sounding really dirty?_

"–much more durable, the metal has been electroplated with mythril dioxides, the edge has been honed down much further and the completely pointless chains – well, they're still there, but they have a little catch so you can remove them. And the blade is now one hundred and thirty centimetres long. You wouldn't know it, but those five centimetres make all the difference – the balance is lots better and it's got more of a swing to it. If you need to get a Heavencloud, get an imitation Heavencloud – I've heard they're known as Heaven's Clouds. Some of the SOLDIERs like to use those instead because they're more reliable, and because they're a pretty close imitation no-one even notices."

"Cloud?"

"Yeah?"

"Why're ya telling me about Heavenclouds if you want me to draw one of those Busty Swords or whatever they're called?"

"Buster, dammit!"

"Whatever," Cid said, rolling his eyes. "Would've preferred a Busty Sword."

"I'm sorry," Cloud said. "I just went off on one. But those Heavenclouds were a total logic lapse." He glanced over at Barret. "The Shinra just ain't…" he started, and Barret finished:

"…no damn good!"

"Yeah."

"Am I going to get to draw this picture or not?"

Cloud jolted. "Oh, sorry. Here. Hold on a second, I've got some specs."

"Right."

"You can see the sword there, right?"

"I'm not blind, kid."

"So," Cloud laughed, "just draw that. I want that sword drawn, OK? Point and all. And handle. All of it. And I want it to have little coils of red around the edge, to sort of represent like blood and fire at once, but sort of…sort of squarish, but curly, like those old drawings of Lifestream – "

"I think I know what you mean."

"Wait, wait waitwait. That's not the catch."

"Then what is the catch?"

Cloud scoured his mind. His drunken hazy eyes passed wildly around. His expression looked comical, quizzical, almost cute in a kicked-puppy sort of way. "The catch is you can only use three colours."

"What?"

"Black, grey, red. Three colours. They tend to run up quite expensive if you don't limit yourself. Three colours, Cid."

"What runs up expensive?"

"I've got paper," Cloud continued. "Barret. What'd you do with that paper?"

"I thought you had it," Barret said, blankly. Cloud scowled.

"Just gimme the goddamn paper. You had it."

"Yeah, but I gave it back to you.

"Oh, for the love of…" Cloud started, and then shrugged. "Forget it. I'll go off and find some –"

"Cloud?" Cid found himself saying.

"What?"

Cid sighed. "I can improvise. Is that alright?"

"Improvise?"

_Wow, I never thought I'd be doing anything remotely favoury for that kid,_ Cid thought to himself, emptying a pack of cigarettes into the palm of his hand.

"Hey, Spiky, hold these," he told him, shoving the handful of cigarettes at him. Cloud took them, with a blank look. "You can have one, if ya want."

"Can I just hook one in my mouth in order to look badass?"

"That's alright too," Cid said, stripping the cigarette packet with his thumbs. Eventually he had a flattish sort of piece of cardboard, which, apart from the fold-lines, looked perfectly useable as paper.

Cloud cottoned on.

"Ahh," he said, and the cigarette fell out of his mouth – even with his alcohol-deadened reflexes, he snatched it out of the air practically in slo-mo before it hit the ground. Cid averted his eyes - he hated those little Cloud-Isn't-Human moments that tended to come up. "You don't need to worry about pens, I've got some."

"Sure," Cid said, and sunk down into a crouch on the floor. "Mind holding the sword up so I can see the point and stuff?"

"Yeah," Cloud smiled, and hauled it out of the ground in a way that left a big muddy crack where it had been. "Oh, but, Cid, try not to go too detailed."

"Why not?"

"Details never come out right. Go for flat colours."

"Crosshatching alright?"

"Dunno. Maybe, as long as it isn't too fine."

Cid took the three felt tips from Cloud's hand – black, grey and red, just as he'd said. After a little thought, he rooted through his own pockets, eventually finding an ancient stump of a pencil – it was a bit blunt and the end had been chewed a little excessively, but it'd do. Cid chewed pencils a lot. He always had done. It was why he'd taken up smoking – he liked the feeling of things in his mouth, be they a pencil or a cigarette.

First he scritched out the basic shape of a rectangle, and sheared off one corner at about forty-five degrees, using the pencil. Dear God, were those really free-hand lines? He'd been blueprinting so long he'd forgotten how to draw. He needed to get more practice. He looked like he'd been using a ruler. Enough of that – now, a little rectangle on top for the hilt and a long cylinder for the handle on top of hat. The cigarette-box cardboard felt oddly rough under his pencil tip. Anyway, now for two little circles for the materia slots. Now he had a template. He popped the pencil in his mouth like a cigarette and grabbed his black felt tip – carefully, he drew an outline for the sword, shearing it and adding dents along the edge where necessary, adding the detail on the hilt, drawing a basic criss-cross up the handle for the wrap of material around it. Then he drew a broken, thin line along the edge of the sheared side, adding a dented, worn cutting edge. A few little crosshatchings on the blade itself and that was the easy part done.

The blood-fire-Lifestream hybrid around the edge was harder. He decided to outline the entire sword in it, and drew little hooked tendrils, clawing up at the sky – he thickened the cloud of it at the bottom, making it into a flow of blood that ended in a wiggling trail and a single sad drop, beneath the tip of the blade. All in all, it took him about ten minutes to draw the lines. Then, he took the black – coloured in sharp, metallic stripes along the blade, blacked out one half of the hilt, and finished the blood-fire-Lifestream with the red felt tip. The rest he coloured in grey, except for the cutting edge and a few stripy highlights, which he left white. This part, despite being the easiest, took the longest. That was eleven PM for you.

"OK," he said, finally, and handed the pens back to Cloud, who stuffed them in his pocket. "Is this what you wanted?"

Cloud snatched the cardboard away and glanced at it. The cigarette was starting to go a little soggy in his mouth. _Yick_, Cid thought. _He should smoke it like a respectable person, not chew on it._

"It's beautiful," he said, finally. "Simple, but really beautiful. Thank you, Cid. You're amazing."

Barret glanced up. "Don't I get ta see?"

"Sorry," Cloud said, showing Barret the pen drawing. Barret looked at it blankly for a while, then handed it back.

"I think it's ugly as hell," he said. Cloud rolled his eyes.

"I like it," he said. "I like it a lot. It was exactly what I wanted." He tilted his head, and set off somewhere – he seemed purposeful, but Cid wasn't exactly sure where he was off to, what he wanted the picture for. Perhaps Cloud was a weirdo who just liked to archive drawings of swords. It wasn't even a very good drawing. But Cid was pretty sure Cloud was some sort of sword fetishist – he imagined Cloud in his solo tent, late at night, thumbing through an antique weapons catalogue with one hand, his legs wide open, moaning in pleasure. Immediately afterwards, he hated himself for imagining it, and giving himself a high probability of nightmares for several weeks.

Cloud handed back the bunch of cigarettes – Cid stared at them for a little, not knowing what to do with them, and then stuck them one by one into the band formed by his goggles, like a little ammo belt.

"Before you go," he asked, tentatively, "can I ask you somethin'?"

Cloud tilted his head. "What?"

"What do you want that for?"

Cloud gave him a look of blank surprise. "Didn't I tell ya? I'm gettin' a tattoo."

"A tattoo?"

"Yeah."

"Of that sword, right?"

"Exactly."

"And you made me draw it for you?"

"That's how it is."

"Then," Cid rationalised, mind racing, "I've just contributed to helping you mutilate yourself when drunk."

"For the sake of Shiva's ice nipples, Cid, I've told you, I'm _not_ drunk!" Cloud snapped. "And it's not mutilation. I happen to like the idea."

Cid thought. "I suppose asking for the picture back won't save you from getting that drawing etched on your ass?"

"I'm going to have it on my arm. And I'm not giving it back. I want the tattoo, Cid."

"You do now," explained Cid, "but when the alcohol leaves your system, you won't."

"I will."

"Cloud, look," Cid began. "You see, tattoos…they don't wash off. They stay there forever."

"You think I didn't know that?"

"Shut up and listen to me, godammit," he snapped, and Cloud shut up. "Sure they look cool, but it'll be there forever. When you get shot dead they could dig up your rottin' corpse and snip out your tattoo, stretch it, tan it, put it on a frame, put it on a wall. That tattoo'll last longer than you will, Cloud. A tattoo…it sounds trivial, but it shouldn't be something you decide to get when so drunk you can't walk straight. That's askin' for trouble."

Cloud paused, and glanced at the cigarette box, prodding at the pale, unmarred skin on his arm. He was a soldier – he should have more scars than that. He'd always looked so pure and weird and beautiful, hopelessly unnatural, inhuman.

"Yeah," Cloud began, "but I know that. I've been thinking about it for some time, actually. It's just…Cid, don't tell anyone, but I'm not too fond of needles, after – you know. Everything. I needed something in me to make me go out and do it. Being drunk isn't a total personality rewrite, Cid. It's more of a…a catalyst. You don't do things that you didn't have the slightest, twisted-up, repressed desire to do when sober. And…and it doesn't matter if it'll be there forever. It doesn't matter if I hate it in the morning. It's a part of me. The sword. So it's not a vanity thing, Cid," he said, and Barret stood and threw an arm around his shoulder, and they both went off into the night, leaning on each other, and Cloud called back, "it's not a vanity thing, it's more of a tribal mark."

"You can say that," Cid called back, "but I still think it's self-mutilation. Twenty gil says you're gonna regret this."

"Twenty gil," Cloud said, breaking away from Barret and making a rather vicious hand gesture at Cid, "says, 'up yours'."

* * *

_Firefly's Feelings (or Why I Wrote This Travesty)_

This was inspired almost entirely by Cendrillo's lovely fic Insignia, and is meant to be a prequel to that. Cend and I were discussing how both our Cids are fond of art but hate the pretention, and this random idea popped into my head.

The whole swords speech was inspired by the stupidly long Codecbabble in the MGS series - you'd equip a gun and then you'd call someone on your Codec and you'd get 'That gun is a Ridiculouslylongname-Anotherlongname X-tl;dr. It does such-and-such a thing, and here's some useless information about it!' and although it wasn't totally uninteresting, I honestly don't know the first thing about guns and so it didn't make a lot of sense. Everything I know about guns I learned from Metal Gear Solid - that needs to be a t-shirt or something, actually.

Again, Cendri, happy birthdays.


End file.
